Two-Dimensional Dirac Half-Metal Ferromagnets and Ferromagnetic Materials for Spintronic Devices

ABSTRACT

Ferromagnetic materials are disclosed that comprise at least one Dirac half metal material. In addition, Dirac half metal materials are disclosed, wherein the material comprises a plurality of massless Dirac electrons. In addition, ferromagnetic materials are disclosed that includes at least one Dirac half metal material, wherein the material comprises a plurality of massless Dirac electrons, wherein the material exhibits 100% spin polarization, and wherein the plurality of electrons exhibit ultrahigh mobility. Spintronic devices and heterostructures are also disclosed that include a Dirac half metal material.

This United States Utility Application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/637,478 filed on Mar. 2, 2018, which is entitled “Two-Dimensional Dirac Half-Metal Ferromagnets for Spintronic Devices” and which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.

The work is supported by NSF-Partnership in Research and Education in Materials (PREM) Grant DMR-1205734 and NSF Grant No. ERC TANMS-116050.

FIELD OF THE SUBJECT MATTER

The field of the subject matter is Dirac half-metal materials and ferromagnets and their use with and in relation to spintronic devices.

BACKGROUND

Spintronics, involving transmission and storage of information by manipulating the spin degrees of freedom, has sparked tremendous interest over the past decades, because it offers unique advantages to conventional charge-based electronic devices, such as greater data processing speed, high integration density, low power consumption, and nonvolatility [1]. Several key properties have been identified for developing new magnetic materials for spintronic devices: Room-temperature half-metallicity, large magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA), high Curie temperature, and high spin mobility [2,3].

Bulk half-metals (HMs), with one spin channel conducting and the other semiconducting are ideal spintronic materials, which exhibit 100% spin polarization [4-6]. However, in order to preserve the half-metallicity at room temperature the band gap of one spin channel should be wide enough to prevent thermally induced spin-flip transitions. An additional challenge is to sustain the half-metallic character in ultrathin HM films [7].

Another distinct class of materials, referred to as “Dirac materials” [8], such as graphene [9], topological insulators [10], Dirac [11], and Weyl semimetals [12], is characterized by low-energy fermionic excitations that behave as massless Dirac particles with linear dispersion. The combination of the intriguing properties of the HMs and the Dirac materials could give rise to yet another exotic state of matter, the so-called Dirac half-metal (DHM), characterized by a band structure with a gap in one channel but a Dirac cone in the other [13,14]. Furthermore, if the DHM possesses strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC), it can trigger a gap opening in one spin channel and drive in turn the system in the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAH) state. Recent first-principles electronic structure calculations predicted that the bulk crystal structure of MnF₃, in the hexagonal R3c space group (No. 167), is a DHM [15]. Nevertheless, the multiple Dirac cones do not persist in ultrathin nm) MnF₃ films irrespective of the surface orientation [16].

While there has been tremendous progress in the field of 2D materials displaying a broad range of electronic and optical properties [9,17,18], most of them in the pristine form are nonmagnetic, thus limiting their applications in spintronics. Although magnetism can be introduced by dopants and defects [13,19], a long-range magnetic order has rarely been observed experimentally in 2D materials. Interestingly, during the past year two teams have observed clear signatures of magnetism in 2D CrGeTe₃ [20] and CrI₃ [21] van der Waals materials down to the monolayer limit. However, both these 2D materials are ferromagnetic insulators with low Curie temperatures of 45 K and 90 K, respectively. Yet, no 2D DHM pristine material has been experimentally synthesized. Consequently, there is an intense current effort on identifying 2D materials to realize such an exotic state that will also satisfy the above material requirements.

In order to advance the science in this area, novel 2D materials should be developed that have a wide range of intriguing properties, which make them highly promising candidates for the next-generation of ultra-low power, scalable, non-volatile spintronic devices, including: (1) they are robust intrinsic half metals ferromagnets with 100% spin polarization where the band gap of the minority spin channel is large (about 4-5 eV); (2) the majority spin-channel should exhibit a Dirac linear band dispersion leading to the first family of 2D intrinsic ferromagnets, which combine two important properties of both half metallic behavior and massless Dirac electrons; (3) the Dirac electron behavior should be robust upon inclusion of spin-orbit interaction; (4) they should exhibit high Fermi velocities up to 3.83×10⁵ m/s comparable to those in graphene; however, unlike graphene, the electrons in MnX₃ are fully spin-polarized; (5) the calculated cohesive energies, phonon dispersion, and finite-temperature Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations should demonstrate the stability of these compounds and hence their experimental feasibility; (6) they should have large spin moments (about 4μ_(B) per Mn atom), large exchange interactions and hence high Curie temperatures (higher than 560 K); (7) the materials should exhibit giant magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy (MCA) (8.71 and 11.86 erg/cm²) with in-plane magnetization orientation.

SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT MATTER

Ferromagnetic materials are disclosed that comprise at least one Dirac half metal material. In addition, Dirac half metal materials are disclosed, wherein the material comprises a plurality of massless Dirac electrons.

In addition, ferromagnetic materials are disclosed that includes at least one Dirac half metal material, wherein the material comprises a plurality of massless Dirac electrons, wherein the material exhibits 100% spin polarization, and wherein the plurality of electrons exhibit ultrahigh mobility.

Spintronic devices and heterostructures are also disclosed that include a Dirac half metal material.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1: (a) Top and side views of the 2D MnX₃ crystal structure with the unit cell, where the yellow and blue spheres denote the Mn and X atoms, respectively. The MnX₆ octahedron with each Mn³⁺ ion coordinated to six X⁻ ions and the hexagonal Brillouin zone (BZ). (b) Top view of various AFM spin configurations: AFM-Néel (AFM-N), AFM-stripy (AFM-ST), AFM-zigzag (AFM-ZZ), and mixed AFM-N-ST, where the red (black) circles denote the up (down) spins.

FIG. 2: (a) Calculated phonon dispersion curves of the 2D MnX₃. (b) Top and side views of atomic structure snapshots from BOMD simulations at 1200 K or 900 K.

FIG. 3: (a) and (c) Minority- and majority-spin band structure of the 2D MnF₃ and MnI₃ FM phase using the DFT+U and HSE06 method. (b) and (d) 3D band structure of the Dirac cone at the K symmetry point and the corresponding projection on the BZ around the Fermi energy (set at zero).

FIG. 4: Energy and k contribution of atom-resolved (left panel), halogen-p-resolved (middle panel), and Mn-d-resolved (right panel) to the majority-spin bands for (a) MnF₃ and (b) MnI₃ using the HSE06 functional. The color intensity denotes the amplitude of the atom- and/or orbital-resolved character.

FIG. 5: (a) Band structure of the zigzag (left) and the armchair (right) edges of the MnBr₃ ribbon, with the edge states connecting the 2D valence and conduction bands. (b) Temperature variation of the Mn³⁺ magnetic moment for the 2D MnX₃. (Inset) Temperature variation of the heat capacity.

FIG. 6: (a) Band structures of the 2D MnX₃ determined by the HSE06 functional in the presence of SOC, where the Fermi level is set at zero; (b) Electron localization function (ELF) of the side view atomic configuration shown on the panel below where the red (blue) color denote regions where ELF=1 (0) corresponding to accumulation (depletion) of electron charge density.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As introduced in the Background section, spintronics is a continuously expanding area of research and development merging the areas of magnetism and electronics. It exploits the intrinsic electron spin degrees of freedom, in addition to its charge, to create new functionalities and new devices. [1] The use of spin offers the potential advantages of non-volatility, lower power consumption, enhanced data processing speed, and increased integration densities compared with conventional semiconductor devices. As discussed above, one important challenge is to discover ferromagnetic thin films which exhibit high spin polarization which will in turn enhance both the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) and spin transfer torque (STT) for read/write operations. Bulk half-metals, with large intrinsic large spin polarization, are ideal magnetic electrode materials to integrate in spintronics device applications, including Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), [37] giant magnetoresistance devices (GMRs), spin transfer torque, etc. However, the spin polarization of half metals disappears when the film thickness is reduced. Thus, it is critical to discover novel ultrathin ferromagnetic materials, which preserve their half metallicity, have ultrahigh electron mobility, and large magnetic anisotropy.

Spintronics is a field of nanoscale electronics using the injection, manipulation and detection of the spin of the electron, in addition to its charge, for memory and logic applications. Due to advancements in spintronics, information storage has experienced tremendous growth in the past decade because it offers opportunities for a new generation of ultralow power, ultrafast, scalable, and nonvolatile devices. MTJs, consisting of two thin ferromagnetic (FM) films separated by a thin insulating oxide layer, are prototypical spintronic devices, where the state (0 or 1) of the magnetic random access memory (MRAM) bit is stored in the relative orientation (parallel or antiparallel) of the magnetization of the two FM films with different TMR values. [38] However, achieving functional spintronic devices requires the development of novel magnetic materials with desirable properties and integration of such diverse materials with atomic-level control. Crucial properties of the FM thin films include: (1) high spin polarization for large TMR, (2) large magnetic anisotropy to ensure room-temperature bit stability, (3) large voltage control of magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) to reduce the magnetic bit switching energy and write voltage, (4) high electron mobility, and (5) high Curie temperature.

Half-metals (HMs) are a class of bulk materials that are metallic only for one spin direction and semiconducting or insulating for the other spin direction. [39] Consequently, the spin polarization of the conduction electrons should be 100%, thus providing fully spin-polarized currents. However, one of the current bottlenecks using thin half metallic films for MRAM applications, is that they do not retain their half metallic nature and hence the high spin polarization is reduced due to the confinement of the electrons normal to the surfaces/interfaces. Thus, it is critical to discover novel thin film (two-dimensional) ferromagnetic materials, which are half metallic to ensure huge TMR values.

Another distinct class of materials, referred to as “Dirac materials” [8], such as graphene [9], topological insulators [10], Dirac [11] and Weyl semimetals [12], is characterized by low-energy fermionic excitations that behave as massless Dirac particles with linear dispersion. The combination of the intriguing properties of the HMs and the Dirac materials could give rise to yet another exotic state of matter, the so-called Dirac half-metal (DHM), characterized by a band structure with a gap in one channel but a Dirac cone in the other. [13,14] Furthermore, if the DHM possesses strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC), it can trigger a gap opening in one spin channel and drive in turn the system in the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAH) state. Recent first-principles electronic structure calculations predicted that the bulk crystal structure of MnF₃, in the hexagonal R3c space group (No. 167), is a DHM [15]. Nevertheless, the multiple Dirac cones do not persist in ultrathin (≈1 nm) MnF₃ films irrespective of the surface orientation [16].

While there has been tremendous progress in the field of 2D materials displaying a broad range of electronic and optical properties [9, 17, 18], most of them in the pristine form are nonmagnetic, thus limiting their applications in spintronics. Although magnetism can be introduced by dopants and defects [14, 19], a long-range magnetic order has rarely been observed experimentally in 2D materials. Interestingly, during the past year two teams have observed clear signatures of magnetism in 2D CrGeTe₃ [20] and CrI₃ [21] van der Waals materials down to the monolayer limit. However, these 2D materials are ferromagnetic insulators with low Curie temperatures of 45K and 90K, respectively. Yet, no 2D DHM pristine material has been experimentally synthesized. Consequently, there is an intense current effort on identifying 2D materials to realize such an exotic state that will also satisfy the above material requirements.

In addition, it is equally important to search for 2D half metallic materials where the massless Dirac electrons, which exhibit a linear energy-momentum dispersion (similar to graphene), exhibit ultrahigh mobility critical for the operational speed of nanodevices. To date, no such 2D Dirac half-metal ferromagnetic materials have been discovered. The emergence of both half metallic magnetic behavior and massless Dirac electrons, if possible, could open up numerous opportunities for 2D magnetic and magnetoelectric applications.

Atomically thin layered van der Waals (vdW) crystals provide an ideal platform of two-dimensional (2D) material systems which exhibit a wide range of intriguing properties for emerging functional devices, such as ultrafast photodetectors, broadband optical modulators and excitonic semiconductor lasers.[5] Several experiments have shown that one can induce extrinsic magnetism in 2D materials through (1) defect engineering; (2) introducing magnetic species; and (3) the magnetic proximity effect, whereby 2D materials are placed in contact with other magnetic substrates. Nevertheless, no 2D crystal with intrinsic magnetism has yet been discovered. Recently, Huang et. al. demonstrated the 2D ferromagnetism in exfoliated monolayer chromium tri-iodide (CrI₃) with out-of-plane spin orientation and a Curie temperature of 45 kelvin. However, CrI₃ is not half metal and hence does not exhibit high spin polarization.

In order to advance the science in this area, a novel and contemplated family of 2D materials has been discovered and is disclosed herein, including MnX₃ (X=F, Cl, Br, and I) that have a wide range of intriguing properties and contemplated embodiments, which make them highly promising candidates for the next-generation of ultra-low power, scalable, non-volatile spintronic devices: (1) they are robust intrinsic half metals ferromagnets with 100% spin polarization where the band gap of the minority spin channel is large (about 4-5 eV); (2) the majority spin-channel exhibits a Dirac linear band dispersion leading to the first family of 2D intrinsic ferromagnets which combine two important properties of both half metallic behavior and massless Dirac electrons; (3) the Dirac electron behavior is robust upon inclusion of spin-orbit interaction; (4) they exhibit high Fermi velocities up to 3.83×10⁵ m/s comparable to those in graphene; however, unlike graphene, the electrons in MnX₃ are fully spin-polarized; (5) the calculated cohesive energies, phonon dispersion, and finite-temperature Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate the stability of these compounds and hence their experimental feasibility; (6) they have large spin moments (about 4μ_(B) per Mn atom), large exchange interactions and hence high Curie temperatures (higher than 560 K); (7) The MnBr₃ and MnI₃ exhibit giant magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy (MCA) (8.71 and 11.86 erg/cm²) with in-plane magnetization orientation. These values are higher by a factor of about 5 compared to ferromagnetic materials (CoFeB) currently used in MRAM applications.

Ferromagnetic materials are disclosed that comprise at least one Dirac half metal material. Contemplated ferromagnetic materials are ultrathin. And as used herein, the term “ultrathin” means it is about or less than about 1 nanometer in average thickness. In some embodiments, the material is doped with at least one other element. As understood, any suitable dopant element is contemplated for these materials. Dopants may be utilized herein for the purpose of modulating or influencing the electrical, optical, or structural properties of the material or materials.

It is understood that contemplated materials have a surface. In some embodiments, the surface is modified with at least one small molecule, at least one defect, at least one additional layer of material, or at least one element.

In some embodiments, contemplated ferromagnetic materials comprise at least one monolayer. Contemplated monolayers or layers may all comprise at least one Dirac half metal material, or some of the contemplated layers may comprise other materials. Contemplated materials are ferromagnetic and monolayer. However, bilayer or thicker layers are also contemplated.

In addition, Dirac half metal materials are disclosed, wherein the material comprises a plurality of massless Dirac electrons. In some embodiments, a contemplated plurality of electrons exhibits ultrahigh mobility. As used herein, the term “ultrahigh” with respect to mobility is calculated using the Fermi velocity. In order to determine if the mobility is ultrahigh, it is compared with the mobility of graphene. In some embodiments, a contemplated Dirac half metal material exhibits 100% spin polarization.

Contemplated Dirac half metal materials comprise at least one manganese trihalide. In some embodiments, a contemplated halide comprises fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine.

In addition, ferromagnetic materials are disclosed that includes at least one Dirac half metal material, wherein the material comprises a plurality of massless Dirac electrons, wherein the material exhibits 100% spin polarization, and wherein the plurality of electrons exhibit ultrahigh mobility, which means that one spin channel is insulating, another spin channel is metallic with Dirac. There are no interactions (noise) between different spin channels leading to more efficient transport, low energy-consumption.

Spintronic devices are also disclosed that include a Dirac half metal material. Contemplated spintronic devices comprise at least one layer of a Dirac half metal material. In contemplated spintronic devices, the Dirac half metal material is two dimensional. Contemplated spintronic devices may also comprise the ferromagnetic materials disclosed herein.

Heterostructures are also contemplated herein that comprise contemplated ferromagnetic materials. In general, heterostructures are structures or assemblies that comprise more than one different material.

As part of this work, two great challenges in spintronics have been solved on how to further enhance the performance of ferromagnetic layer materials with high spin polarization ratio; large magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA), excellent carrier mobility, low energy-consumption, and high Curie temperature. The 2D MnX₃ layer materials we discovered resolve the shortcomings of bulk half-metallic materials in which the half-metallic features are lost on going to ultrathin layers and provide opportunities for engineering new magneto-optoelectronic devices with superior performance.

In summary, contemplated two-dimensional ‘Dirac half metals’ with ferromagnetic ground states and high Curie temperature with intriguing properties, discussed in detail above and considered contemplated embodiments, have been discovered that makes them promising for the next-generation spintronics devices. Research reveals that the proposed MnX₃ layer materials can maintain their ferromagnetism and half-metallicity up to 560 K. In addition, this family of materials exhibits excellent stability. The intrinsic 2D monolayer structures can be adopted directly as thin film to assemble spintronic devices.

EXAMPLES

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were carried out using the Vienna ab initio simulation package (VASP) [22,23]. The pseudopotential and wave functions are treated within the projector-augmented wave (PAW) method [24]. Structural relaxations were carried out using the generalized gradient approximation as parametrized by Perdew et al. [25]. The plane-wave cutoff energy was set to 500 eV and a 9×9×1 k mesh was used in the Brillouin zone (BZ) sampling for the relaxation calculations. The band structure was calculated using (i) the DFT+U approach [26] (U=3.9 eV) to treat the strong correlations of the Mn d electrons and (ii) the more accurate Heyd-Scuseria-Ernzerhof (HSE06) [27] functional. For the MCA calculations, the SOC was included with a 31×31×1 k-point mesh. For the phonon calculations the VASP and PHONOPY [28] codes were employed with a 3×3×1 72-atom supercell to determine the dynamical matrix.

Equilibrium Structural and Magnetic Properties.

The crystal structure of the MnX₃ monolayer, shown in FIG. 1(a), consists of a plane of Mn atoms forming a honeycomb lattice and sandwiched between two X atomic planes, with two Mn and six X atoms per (1×1) unit cell, similar to that of CrI_(3 [21)]. The Mn ions are surrounded by six first-nearest-neighbor halogens arranged in an edge sharing distorted octahedra, shown in FIG. 1(a). In sharp contrast to the crystal structure in Ref. [15] where two Mn ions are bonded by a single anion, two Mn³⁺ in FIG. 1(a) are bonded by two anions. Consequently, the crystal structure in FIG. 1(a) is dramatically distinct than any of the surface orientations of bulk MnF₃.

TABLE 1 Calculated equilibrium lattice constant, bond lengths of Mn—X and Mn—Mn, angle of the X—Mn—X bond, cohesive energy, magnetic moment of Mn³⁺, and MCA per unit area, respectively, for the FM ground state. We also list values of the energy difference between the FM ground state and the AFM-ZZ and AFM-N-ST states, respectively, of the 2 × 2 × 1 unit cell). MnF₃ MnCl₃ MnBr₃ MnI₃ a (Å) 5.36 6.21 6.58 7.08 d_(Mn—X) (Å) 1.96 2.38 2.55 2.77 d_(Mn—Mn) (Å) 3.09 3.58 3.83 4.08 <Mn_X_Mn (°) 104.29 97.44 96.10 94.81 E_(coh) (eV/atom) −4.33 −3.10 −2.70 −2.31 μ (μ_(B)) 3.92 4.08 4.18 4.27 E_(AFM-ZZ) − E_(FM) (meV) 273 212 248 250 E_(AFM-N-ST) − E_(FM) (meV) 115 269 430 436 MCA (erg/cm²) −0.013 −0.46 −8.71 −11.86

We have carried total-energy spin-polarized calculations of the 2×2×1 unit cell of the ferromagnetic (FM) and various antiferromagnetic (AFM) phases, such as the AFM-Néel (AFM-N), the AFM-zigzag (AFM-ZZ), the AFM-stripy (AFM-SR), and the mixed AFM-N-ST, respectively, shown in FIG. 1(b). We find (Table I) that the optimized FM is the ground state for all MnX₃ and that the next highest-energy configuration is the AFM-ZZ for X=Cl, Br, and I and the AFM-N-ST for X=F. Table I lists values of the equilibrium lattice constants, the Mn—Mn and Mn—X bond lengths, the X—Mn—X angle, the Mn magnetic moments, and cohesive energies for the FM phase. We also list values of the energy differences, between the most likely AFM-ZZ and AFM-N-S and the FM ground state. As expected, the lattice constant, the Mn—Mn and Mn—X bond lengths increase as the halogen anion's ionic radius increases. For the MnF₃ ML, the Mn—F bond length of 1.96 Å is close to the value of 1.93 Å in bulk β-MnF₄, implying strong chemical bonding. Similarly, the cohesive energy decreases with an increasing atomic number of the halogen due to the decreasing electronegativity of the halogen anion.

The magnetic moment per Mn atom of the FM phase, also listed in Table I, increases from 3.92μ_(B) in MnF₃ to 4.27μ_(B) in MnI₃. The magnetic moment is consistent with the +3-oxidation state of Mn and hence the 4s⁰3d⁴ electronic configuration. In the octahedral environment of the six halogens the 3d energy split into a higher-energy e_(g) doublet and a lower-energy t_(2g) triplet, resulting in a spin s=2t³ _(2g)e¹ _(g) electronic configuration for the Mn⁺³ ion according to the Hund's rule coupling. This is similar to the 2D organometallic honeycomb framework with different embedded transition metals. The electron localization function for MnF₃ displayed in FIG. 4S(b) (Supplemental Material [29]), shows strong localization of the electron density around the metal cations and halogen anions representative of Mn—X ionic bonding.

The MCA per unit area A is, MCA=[E_([100])−E_([001])]/A, where E_([100]) and E_([001]) are the total energies with magnetization along the [100] and [001] directions, respectively. The values of MCA, listed in Table I, show that the MCA<0 indicating the in-plane magnetization orientation in all MnX₃'s. Furthermore, the IMCAI increases with increasing halogen size. The value of −0.46 erg/cm² in MnCl₃ is comparable to that of −0.56 erg/cm² in the ultrathin Au/FeCo/MgO heterostructure [30] for MRAM applications. More importantly, the MCA values of 8.71 erg/cm² and 11.9 erg/cm² in MnBr₃ and MnI₃, respectively, are about an order of magnitude higher than that of 1.4 erg/cm² in Ta/FeCo/MgO MRAM nanojunctions. The giant MCA values presumably arise from the strong SOC of the heavier X=Br, I, suggesting that introduction of heavy elements in transition metal-based films, may be an efficient strategy in enhancing the MCA.

Dynamical and Thermal Stability.

In order to corroborate the dynamical stability of the FM ground state of the 2D MnX₃ we have carried out both phonon calculations and ab initio Born Oppenheimer molecular dynamics (BOMD) simulations. The phonon dispersions of the MnX₃, shown in FIG. 2(a), exhibit similar overall shape with the phonon frequencies softening with increasing mass of X. The absence of imaginary frequencies confirms the dynamical stability of all MnX₃ monolayers. FIG. 2(b) and Supplemental Material, FIG. 1S [29], show the snapshots of the MnX₃ atomic configurations after annealing for 10 ps at different temperatures of 300, 600, 900, and 1200 K, respectively. One can clearly see that the 2D monolayers retain their honeycomb atomic structures up to 1200 K for MnF₃, MnCl₃, and MnBr₃, and up to 600 K for MnBr₃ [see FIG. 1S(d) in Supplemental Material [29]]. This is consistent with the higher cohesive energies of the lighter MnX₃ systems. These results demonstrate that the 2D manganese trihalides are both dynamically and thermally stable for various room-temperature spintronic applications.

Electronic Structure.

FIGS. 3(a) and 3(c) show the minority- and majority-spin band structures of the FM phase for the MnF₃ and MnI₃ monolayer, respectively, employing the PBE+U (orange curves) and the more accurate hybrid HSE06 (blue curves) functional. Similar band structures for the MnCl₃ and MnBr₃ are displayed in FIGS. 2S(a) and 2S(c) in Supplemental Material [29]. These calculations reveal that all MnX₃ exhibit two fascinating properties which are independent of the exchange correlation functional: (1) The minority-spin channel is an insulator with an unusually large gap, and (2) the majority-spin channel exhibits Dirac cones at the three high-symmetry K points at the Fermi level (E_(F)) for X=F, Cl, Br. While the Dirac cone is in the vicinity of E_(F) for the heaviest MnI₃ at the PBE+U level, the HSE06 functional shifts it at the E_(F). Consequently, we predict that the 2D MnX₃ are intrinsic DHMs. The PBE+U values of the band gap of the minority spin channel are 6.3 eV, 4.33 eV, 3.85 eV, and 3.10 eV for the MnF₃, MnCl₃, MnBr₃, and MnI₃, respectively. The PBE functional underestimates the gap by about 20% compared to the corresponding HSE06 values of 7.94 eV, 5.42 eV, 4.79 eV, and 3.89 eV, respectively. The HSE06 values of the Fermi velocities of the Dirac electrons are 3.83×10⁵, 2.40×10⁵, and 2.31×10⁵ m/s for MnF₃, MnCl₃, and MnBr₃, respectively, close to the value of 8×10⁵ m/s in graphene. For MnI₃ the Fermi velocities of the Dirac electrons and holes are 1.56×10⁵ m/s and 3.36×10⁵ m/s, respectively. The combination of 100% spin polarization and massless Dirac fermions renders this family a natural candidate for future applications in spintronics and optoelectronics.

The three-dimensional (3D) majority-spin band profiles around E_(F) near K are shown in FIGS. 3(b) and 3(d) for MnF₃ and MnI₃, and in FIGS. 2S(b) and 2S(d) in Supplemental Material [29] for MnCl₃ and MnBr₃, respectively. With an increasing atomic number of the halogen, the Dirac cone of the conduction band minimum becomes flatter while there is no significant change of the cone of the valence band maximum. The corresponding projection of the Dirac cones on the 2D BZ around the Fermi level are shown in FIGS. 3(b) and 3(d).

The atom- and orbital-resolved majority-spin band structures obtained with the HSE06 functional are shown in FIGS. 4(a) and 4(b) for X=F, I, and in FIGS. 3S(a) and 3S(b) in Supplemental Material [29] for X=Cl, Br, respectively. Overall, we find that the linearly dispersive majority-spin electronic bands at the Fermi energy arise from hybridization primary of the Mn-derived d_(xz) and d_(yz) (and to a smaller extent of d_(x2-y2)) states with the halogen-derived in-plane p_(x) and p_(y) states. The relative strength of the X-p_(x,y) to the Mn-d_(xz,yz) contribution increases as the halogen atomic size increases down the group, where the Dirac cone is mainly composed of Mn-d derived states in MnF₃ and of X-p states in MnI₃. The valence and conduction bands of the Dirac cone are composed mainly of anion-p_(x) and -p_(y) derived states, respectively. The low-energy Dirac cone Mn-d-derived states in MnF₃ are in sharp contrast to the corresponding p-derived states in graphene. In addition, the weak hybridization of the in-plane halogen-p_(x,y) Dirac states with the underlying substrates will presumably preserve the Dirac cone, as opposed to the strong out-of plane π(p_(z)) hybridization of graphene bonds with substrates.

Effect of Spin-Orbit Coupling.

FIG. 6 shows the band structure of MnX₃ determined by the HSE06 functional in the presence of SOC. The inclusion of SOC triggers a small gap opening of −3-10 meV at the high symmetry K point indicating that the 100% spin polarization will be maintained at room temperature. Remarkably, the linear band dispersion of the majority spin channel is also preserved in the presence of SOC for the lighter halogens (X=F, Cl, and Br). On the other hand, the large SOC of the iodine induces (i) a gap opening of −91 meV at K, and (ii) splits the doubly degenerate I-derived p_(x,y) states at ˜0.15 eV below E_(F) at r [see FIG. 4(b)] into one band ˜0.1 eV above E_(F) and the other ˜0.3 eV below E_(F), thus preserving the half-metallicity of MnI₃.

To identify the topological properties of the gapped state of the lighter MnX₃, we have calculated the Chern number of MnBr₃, which exhibits the largest gap. We have employed the Wannier charge centers approach [31], where the maximally localized Wannier functions were constructed from the first-principles calculations including SOC using the Wannier90 package [32]. The Chern number for the MnBr₃ monolayer is calculated from the evolution of the hybrid Wannier charge centers (HWCCs) during a time-reversal pumping process [33,34]. The Chern number,

${C - {\frac{1}{ea}\left\lbrack {{P_{e}^{h}\left( {2\pi} \right)} - {P_{e}^{h}(0)}} \right\rbrack}},$

where a is the lattice constant, P_(c) ^(k)(k_(y))=eΣ_(n)(x_(n) k_(y)) is the hybrid electronic polarization, and the HWCC, x_(n) k_(y), is a smooth function of k_(y) for k_(y)∈[0,2π]. Namely, the Chern number can be viewed as the number of electronic charges pumped across one unit cell in the course of a cycle [35]. We find an odd Chern number, C=−1, for MnBr₃, indicating that it is a QAH insulator with a topological nontrivial gap. To corroborate this result we have calculated the band structures of the zigzag and armchair edges of the MnBr₃ ribbon, which are displayed in FIG. 5(a). The emergence of a single chiral topologically protected gapless edge state near E_(F) connecting the 2D valence and conduction bands is consistent with the calculated Chern number. Thus, we predict that MnF₃, MnCl₃, and MnBr₃ provide a promising platform for exploring the QAH effect at ˜60-100K, which is three orders of magnitude higher than the temperature of 100 mK at which the QAH was recently observed in Cr-doped Bi₂Se₃ films [36].

Magnetic Properties.

Since the values of the X—Mn—X angle, listed in Table I, are close to 90° the superexchange interaction between two nearest-neighbor (NN) Mn atoms mediated by X are expected to be FM and dominant (the direct AFM exchange interactions are weak due to the large Mn—Mn distance). The exchange interaction parameters J_(i,j) are determined by expressing the DFT total energies of the various FM and AFM configurations to the Heisenberg spin Hamiltonian,

${\hat{H} = {{- J_{i,j}^{\prime}}{\sum\limits_{i,j}{{\hat{S}}_{i}{\hat{S}}_{j}}}}},$

detined on a honeycomb lattice, where |S=2|. The second- and third-NN exchange interactions are smaller than the first-NN interaction J₁, which increases from 3.8 meV in MnF₃ to 10 meV in MnI₃. Using the DFT-derived exchange interactions, we have determined the Curie temperature Tc, using Metropolis Monte Carlo simulations of the 100×100 2D honeycomb lattice with periodic boundary conditions. The temperature variation of the Mn³⁺ magnetic moment for the MnX₃ is shown in FIG. 5(b). We find that Tc increases from 450K in MnF₃ to 720K in MnI₃, which are higher than that of in CrI₃. The inset shows the temperature variation of the specific heat which peaks at Tc.

In summary, contemplated embodiments show that the 2D pristine manganese trihalides is a family of intrinsic Dirac half-metals which exhibits many unique properties, including 100% spin polarization, massless Dirac fermions with high carrier mobility, large magnetic moments, high Curie temperatures, and large in-plane magnetic anisotropy. Consequently, they meet many requirements of high-efficiency spintronic applications. We demonstrate that the MnX₃ are dynamically and thermodynamically stable up to high temperatures and hence could be synthesized experimentally by an exfoliation process commonly employed in other 2D van der Waal crystals. Lastly, in contrast with conventional FM films, which interact strongly with the underlying substrates, the electronic and magnetic properties of these 2D van der Waals DHMs can remain on substrates.

Thus, specific embodiments, methods of use, and production of two-dimensional Dirac half-metal materials and ferromagnets for spintronic devices have been disclosed. It should be apparent, however, to those skilled in the art that many more modifications besides those already described are possible without departing from the inventive concepts herein. The inventive subject matter, therefore, is not to be restricted except in the spirit of the disclosure herein. Moreover, in interpreting the specification, all terms should be interpreted in the broadest possible manner consistent with the context. In particular, the terms “comprises” and “comprising” should be interpreted as referring to elements, components, or steps in a non-exclusive manner, indicating that the referenced elements, components, or steps may be present, or utilized, or combined with other elements, components, or steps that are not expressly referenced.

REFERENCES

The references included below are incorporated by reference herein.

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1. A ferromagnetic material, comprising at least one Dirac half metal material.
 2. The ferromagnetic material of claim 1, wherein the ferromagnetic material is ultrathin.
 3. The ferromagnetic material of claim 2, wherein ultrathin is about 1 nanometer in thickness.
 4. The ferromagnetic material of claim 2, wherein ultrathin is less than about 1 nanometer in thickness.
 5. The ferromagnetic material of claim 1, wherein the ferromagnetic material comprises at least one monolayer.
 6. A Dirac half metal material, wherein the material comprises a plurality of massless Dirac electrons.
 7. The Dirac half metal material of claim 6, wherein the material exhibits 100% spin polarization.
 8. The Dirac half metal material of claim 6, wherein the plurality of electrons exhibits ultrahigh mobility.
 9. The Dirac half metal material of claim 6, wherein the material comprises a manganese trihalide.
 10. The Dirac half metal material of claim 9, wherein the halide of the trihalide comprises fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine.
 11. A ferromagnetic material, comprising at least one Dirac half metal material, wherein the material comprises a plurality of massless Dirac electrons, wherein the material exhibits 100% spin polarization, and wherein the plurality of electrons exhibits ultrahigh mobility.
 12. A spintronic device comprising a Dirac half metal material.
 13. The spintronic device of claim 12, comprising at least one layer of a Dirac half metal material.
 14. The spintronic device of claim 12, wherein the Dirac half metal material is two dimensional.
 15. A spintronic device comprising the ferromagnetic material of claim
 1. 16. A spintronic device comprising the ferromagnetic material of claim
 2. 17. The spintronic device of claim 15, wherein the material has a high Curie temperature.
 18. The ferromagnetic material of claim 1, wherein the material is doped with at least one other element.
 19. The ferromagnetic material of claim 1, wherein the material has a surface.
 20. The ferromagnetic material of claim 19, wherein the surface is modified with at least one small molecule, at least one defect, at least one additional layer of material, or at least one element.
 21. A heterostructure comprising the ferromagnetic material of claim
 1. 22. The heterostructure of claim 21, wherein the heterostructure is vertical or lateral. 